Kanbou
by Natsu chan
Summary: Winter in the mountains outside Otsu and Tomoe's inner most thoughts. A short one shot. Please read and review.


Author's notes: Well finally I've managed to produce _something_. I really don't know how good this is. I really don't think it's up to my best but it's been such a struggle to write anything over the last 9 months that I'm pleased with it all the same. The last chapter of Snowfall is coming _slowly,_ but it is getting there. Hopefully you'll enjoy this little one shot it's from Tomoe's point of view. Oh and by the way kanbou means watching or observation which is a bit literal but fitting, at least I think it is! Please read and review.

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin, I'm only borrowing it's characters.

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Tiny sparks rise from the embers, glowing bright yellow in the darkness. The branches of the leafless cherry tree scrape against the roof stirred by the breeze that ebbs and sighs. The wind brings with it a deep chill that seeps in through the floor and the walls.

In the soft orange glow that rises from the embers, he looks different. In this half light he looks nothing like the shadow that prowls the dark Kyoto nights but nor does he resemble the quiet, smiling medicine seller that everyone here thinks he is. Propped against the wall, his wakizashi beside him, his eyes closed, his hair brushing against his cheek, he looks as far from a killer as it is possible to be. And yet it is an illusion. If roused he could remove your head cleanly from your shoulders with the merest flick of his wrist while you were still staring at him in surprise. He truly is a study in contradictions.

Standing here candle in hand, gazing down at my husband who insists on sleeping against the cold timber wall leaving the futon to me, a faint smile flickers across my lips. The light from the freshly stirred embers makes his hair glow with a warmth and light of its own. The cold rises up through the floor, yet there he is propped against the wall completely relaxed, with only the clothes on his back to shelter him.

I step around the painted rice paper partition, moving cautiously lest I disturb that peaceful repose. I place the candle down feather light on the floor and shrug off my robe. He doesn't stir. His only reaction to my sweeping the robe around his shoulders is a faint almost inaudible sigh. Even when I slide his long pony tail out of the way so the robe can comfortably encompass his narrow shoulders, he doesn't move. I pause gazing past the blood red forelock curiously. Perhaps, he's merely pretending to be asleep. An irreverent tickle of cold air stirs his tangled fringe into an odd little dance against his skin. I hold my breath half expecting those clear, bright eyes to snap open, but he only twitches pulling his pony tail through my fingers with all the smoothness of a silk obi.

He looks so young when he is sleeping. When he is awake, even when he smiles in that completely open way that has become so frequent of late, there is something there. Something that is silent and unreachable in those deep violet eyes. Something unnameable that makes you realise that here is no innocent child. I don't know what that something is, caution perhaps, or suspicion or just the dark light that comes from stripping so many of their lives. Yet here he is inches away from me, the soft glow filtering through the rice paper illuminating his scarred cheek and red hair. A harmless innocent who's fallen asleep where he sat. That's how he appears.

I stretch out my finger tips pausing the thinnest margin away from his face. Is this quiet young man really the monster that I hated with such force that it drove me all the way from Edo to Kyoto? It seems impossible yet I know without doubt it is true. Even now sometimes I dream, of the dark rain filled night that we first came face to face. The blood that fell like rain, the sound of steel slicing through bone. The desperate, laboured breathing as he stood there staring at me. I can never quite forget the image of that small rain soaked figure festooned in chains fighting desperately for his life. His strength and skill that night truly were monstrous.

Hitokiri Battousai is indeed sitting before me slouched against the timber walls of our home. He is small, even for his age and young, not at all what you would expect from the whispers that encircle Kyoto like mist. Yet he is strong, frighteningly so, and swift and sure, a deadly combination to say the least. He is indeed a spider's web of contradictions. Only this morning this same man spent an hour or so playing so gently and kindly with the village children, all of whom are completely besotted with him. I am not good with children. In some strange way they seem to sense my inner secrets and guilt. I could only watch in wonder as he smiled so openly and controlled his great strength with such care lest he hurt them. Somehow when I look at him now the stories of the Hitokiri seem very far away.

The sound of a bamboo shutter rattling lightly in the wind draws me back to the present. The candle flame flutters as I retreat, one hand extended behind me to reach for the quilt. Somehow since that night I too have had the mist pulled from my eyes. Little by little his smile and gentleness, his honesty and desire to protect people have shown me that the world is not so black and white at all. All the guilt that fills me, all the sorrow in my heart he returns to me with a smile so full of gentleness and love that it tears at me. Deep inside I hope they will forget us and leave me to this thin slither of happiness that has fallen into my lap, but I know my hope is in vain. A black ship can not be left to sail freely away.

2007

Hitokiri assassin

wakizashi the short sword that usually accompanies the longer katana.


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